The celebration of Christ the King Sunday arose when Pope Pius XI found the increasing secularism of modern society eroding people’s faith. This was in 1925, and the Fascists under Mussolini were making their presence felt in Italy. Pius thought it was necessary to remind the faithful that whatever political powers might hold sway, ultimately, it is Christ who is “King of kings and Lord of lords.”

It seems we keep having this conversation. The very first statement of Christian identity, the first creed, if you will, was “Jesus is Lord.” In the first century, the part that no one said aloud was: Jesus is Lord, not Caesar.

We are faced with a few issues in claiming that “Christ is King.” First, there is the fact that the original subversive nature of Christianity was subsumed into the Holy Roman Empire and made into a part of the power of the emperor, a fact that has colored organized Christianity ever since. By the time of the Protestant Reformation, it seemed perfectly reasonable that Europe should be divided among the Protestants and the Catholics, depending on the faith of the heads of state. The church has not always behaved as agents of the One on the throne in today’s gospel, who judges people by how they have treated the least among us; all too frequently, the church has participated in the political games that create winners and losers, groups with power and groups without. So as Christians, we are called to be aware of our own past and renounce the church’s interest in worldly power.

The second issue we confront is that the world has turned, and there are few kings anywhere. For the Western world, the monarchs who remain have nothing like the power of an emperor; they are figureheads who work cooperatively within constitutional monarchies. In the United States, furthermore, we had a revolution in order to separate ourselves from a despotic monarch, and our self-understanding as a nation includes a proud independence from the notion of monarchy.

So what do we mean when we affirm that Christ is King? What are we celebrating? How is this monarchy part of the Good News?

A quick peek at the headlines would raise some questions: if Christ is King, why is there so much violence and unrest in the world? If Christ is King, why are there children dying of malnutrition in refugee camps? If Christ is King, what are we to make of the world’s current crop of dictators and despots? If Christ is King, why are humans continuing to make choices that endanger and even eradicate other species who share with us “this fragile earth, our island home”?

Either Christ is not king, or he’s a neglectful king; or we’re talking about a reality that is hidden behind the everyday reality we read about in the news.

Today’s gospel suggests that there is a hidden quality we don’t see. Look at the surprise of those who meet the one seated on the throne: “When was it, Lord, that we saw you hungry and did not feed you?”

The Gospel of Matthew, which has been read for most of this year, points over and over to the kingdom of God as a hidden reality obscured by the world of human endeavor, a reality that peeks out occasionally, when Jesus does what Jesus does: he heals, he masters the chaotic elements of creation, he feeds people, he meets and loves people on the margins. In Matthew, Jesus says over and over that the kingdom is visible and available to his followers, as well, when we behave as citizens of that kingdom: when we serve the least, feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, visit the sick, and perhaps, above all, emulate Jesus when he speaks God’s truth to the powers that be.

There is, further, a subversive quality to the reality of the kingdom, a sense that those who see and understand it are from the margins of society rather than from the powerful and content center. In Matthew, the list of those who see and accept what Jesus has to offer includes a Roman centurion, a Canaanite woman, and Matthew, a despised tax collector. The disciples themselves are hardly the elite of Jerusalem; they are country bumpkins from the provinces, hardly the sort to set the world on fire. Yet all these people listen to Jesus and follow him, perhaps because the status quo has not given them very much.

While the world has changed over and over in the years since the Gospel of Matthew was written, the list of the vulnerable in today’s gospel has only grown. “The hungry” now means a billion people who go to bed every night with little or no food. “The thirsty,” means millions of people worldwide dealing with severe drought. “The sick,” includes millions of people infected with the most difficult and pernicious illnesses, including AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis. And the United States leads the world in its share of “those in prison.” It is harder than ever to see the reality of God’s kingdom and the Lordship of Christ behind these devastating everyday realities. But it is easier than ever to see those on the margins whose needs are overwhelming.

The call of Jesus to his disciples has not changed. As followers of Jesus, we are called to behave as citizens of the kingdom, for love of the King.

The Episcopal Church at its General Convention in 2003 formally endorsed the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals, and at each subsequent convention the church has taken further steps, including a pledge of 0.7% of its funds to bring these goals to fruition. Episcopal Relief & Development is involved in work all over the world that aims to help the most vulnerable – the hungry, the thirsty, the sick, the poor – and provide not only immediate relief, but assist in creating self-sustaining programs that will raise the standard of living for whole villages and areas.

The notion of the kingship of Christ, over against the reality in which we live, begs the question: are we behaving like citizens of the kingdom? Are the hungry and thirsty, the poor and neglected better off because of us? Is the reality of the expansive, all-encompassing love of God visible in what we do? In the end, this gospel says, that’s what matters in human existence. When we make choices about where to spend our time, our money, our energy, and our best gifts, we are making choices that build the kingdom – or don’t.

We are called by today’s gospel to understand ourselves as those who are called to embody the kingdom in the here and now, so that it can come in its fullness, and Christ will be king – because we choose to dwell in that kingdom.

What this feast day affirms is twofold: that Christ is King, all evidence in the current time to the contrary; and that what we do, the choices we make, matter very, very much.

Written by the Rev. Kay Sylvester
The Rev. Kay Sylvester is the assistant rector at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Tustin, California. She is a teacher, trainer, retreat leader, and preschool chaplain. Her prior experience includes teaching piano and guitar, and selling volleyball and wrestling equipment.

Today is Remembrance Sunday – the Sunday closest to November eleventh – the day World War I ended nearly a hundred years ago at the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” of 1918. In the United Kingdom and in many Commonwealth countries, Remembrance Sunday is kept with great solemnity as an annual reminder of the evil of war and the sacrifice of those who have given their lives for their nation and for the cause of justice and freedom. Many people on this day attend worship, visit cemeteries, and wear a poppy flower on their lapels in commemoration of the day and what it represents.

Veterans Day, as November eleventh is now called in the United States, is not observed with perhaps the same widespread and popular involvement as is Remembrance Sunday in other lands. Still, it is appropriate for all of us from time to time to remember and honor those who have served their country in periods of both conflict and peace.

War is, of course, nothing new. And World War I, as we now know, far from being “the war to end war” in the catchphrase popularized a century ago by H.G. Wells, has sadly proved to be but one more in a long succession of wars and conflicts beginning before written history and extending right into our own times. Humankind, it seems, has yet to learn to settle its differences peaceably and equitably.

And tyrants, as we also realize only too well, do not easily give up their power and hegemony in the name of the common good and righteousness. Sometimes it takes a popular uprising, and the conflict and violence it entails, to bring change and, ironically, peace. We can only hope at this point that such will prove to be the case in the Middle East, as nations and peoples long demoralized and repressed now demand their rights and liberty.

Warfare and conflict, in fact, play an important part in the story of virtually every land and culture, including our own. Even scripture itself is replete with accounts of battles and clashes too numerous to count, all of which in some sense molded Israel into the people of God. Our first reading today from the Book of Judges provides us with one example.

And it is an interesting one at that – the story of “Deborah, a prophetess, wife of Lippidoth.” Her story exemplifies the familiar Biblical themes of sin and redemption. “The Israelites again did what is evil in the sight of the Lord,” we are told as the story unfolds, though of course without being given the details of their transgressions. God punishes his people for their unnamed misdeeds by seeing them sold “into the hand of King Jabin of Canaan,” who, in turn, oppresses them “cruelly for twenty years.”

The Israelites predictably “cried out to the Lord for help,” and through what must have seemed to them the unlikely intervention of Deborah – the only woman judge in Israel’s long history – an armed force of some “ten thousand” troops is organized and sent into battle. The people of Israel are at last rescued and their enemy vanquished. The narrative is nearly archetypal for every great conflict in the history of ancient Israel from the time of the Exodus to the era of the Maccabees.

While no one today would likely suggest that oppression and war are of necessity God’s punishment for sin, there is nevertheless surely something in our fallen nature that brings conflict in spite of our best intentions and determination to avoid it. Like the Israelites, we remain all too capable of doing “what is evil in the sight of the Lord.” That much has not changed. Nor for that matter has our need for redemption. Just as in the time of Deborah, it is still the Lord alone who can rescue us from our own worst instincts.

In the Prayers of the People during many of our Sunday liturgies today, we will once again pray “for the peace of the world.” It may seem sometimes a futile, even perfunctory, petition, as conflict and fear still remain the norms in lands far away and on the streets of many of our very own communities. Paul is doubtless right in what he bluntly tells the Thessalonians in our second reading: “When they say, ‘There is peace and security,’ then sudden destruction will come.” It seems sadly to be a fact of life as much today as it was in Paul’s time – not to mention in 1918.

The last combat survivors of World War I have only recently passed on. Our human link with that generation and its war has been broken forever. But our fervent prayers for peace and for those who have died in conflict continue unabated. After all, we can only ever hope for the miracle of peace when we also remember in prayer the cost of war.

“You don’t know me? How could you not know me? You invited me to the wedding!” This parable is one of the stranger ones Jesus told. There are almost too many issues to wonder about and some of them are puzzling to say the least.

We realize there’s a potential problem when we hear that 10 young women went out to wait for the bridegroom and only five took extra oil. Ah, there’s a problem. This may easily turn out to be a lesson in being prepared. But there are other problems less easy to figure out.

In Jesus’ day, there would, indeed, be a procession in the evening, one in which the bride would be escorted from her father’s house to the wedding, accompanied by young girls carrying torches to light the way. However, Biblical scholar Richard Pervo, in an article in the journal “Tuesday Morning,” brings out the point that in this story there’s absolutely no mention of the bride, and even the bridegroom is unexplainably late in arriving. Were the bride or bridegroom unprepared in some way? We might all remember a wedding or two where the bride was late and people began shuffling their feet in nervous anticipation of a real problem. But this isn’t about the bride.

So, then we might look at the problem of the oil. We might think it wasn’t kind of the five young women not to give some of their oil to the ones who had none. Is this a parable that teaches about sharing? Anyway, where would five young women go at midnight to find a store open that would sell them oil? Another problem!

Finally, the bridegroom arrives, and with great rejoicing, the guests go into the banquet hall, with the exception of the five who are off looking for oil. When they finally arrive, they are not admitted because their host claims not to know them. Strange indeed. How could he not know people he’d invited? They were young girls, probably friends of the bride from the village. At least in this parable, unlike the one about the man who had no wedding garment, the unfortunate women were not bound hand and foot and cast into outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth!

So many questions; where do we start? The most helpful thing is to look at where this passage falls in the whole gospel of Matthew. If we were to back up to Chapter 24, we’d find Jesus talking about the destruction of the temple and the coming of the end times. That whole chapter is couched in eschatological images – the end of time, the Second Coming. We remember that Matthew’s audience was most likely Jews, and it was written around the year 90. A lot had happened to the Jews at that time. The temple had indeed been destroyed by that time. The fledgling church was growing to include the gentiles. The persecutions of the Christians had already begun under Nero, followed by Domitian. So, very likely, this passage is basically a warning to be prepared. Christians of that time believed the second coming of Christ was imminent, so being prepared was very important.

If we look at the very end of Matthew 24 we read: “The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Today’s reading begins with “At that time” – so we realize that this parable is a continuation of the point Jesus was making in Chapter 24. At that time– when the master returns, whenever that is – you must be ready.

But the end time has not yet come, has it? We’re still waiting; and that’s OK – we need the time. We suddenly realize that what this parable is really telling us is that we must live the way God wants us to live all the time, not just when we think the Second Coming may happen. Jesus often reminds his hearers that we know not the time nor the hour. We must not be like some of the early Christians who put off their baptism until they were on their deathbed so that they could be guaranteed a place in heaven – their souls being cleansed from sin by their last-minute baptism. We can’t play chicken with God. It’s not only juvenile, it’s hypocritical. And we know what Jesus says so often about hypocrites.

Today’s parable is one of the really interesting ones. In one way it’s full of questions on a very human level. What happened to the bride? Why was the bridegroom late? Why did he not recognize the young women? These are questions that would make a Bible study energetic!

On a soul-searching level, it’s very straightforward. Jesus is reminding us that we must live our lives as true children of God. Of course, we are human and we will sin. We will have times when we don’t share our oil, so to speak, whether that’s because of our selfishness or our own unpreparedness. But overall, we must seriously examine our hearts and souls each day and strive to be a witness to God’s love. Perhaps that could be a reason the bridegroom doesn’t recognize the five foolish virgins. Would God recognize us as children of God right now, today? Or would God see that Sunday in church is the only time we think about God or our spiritual lives?

The world today makes it very difficult to keep notice of our spiritual lives. We see entire institutions, governments, even the institutional church exhibiting less than laudable practices. We might wonder if the whole world has turned a blind eye to anything of God. We’re certainly not treating God’s gift of creation as a gift worth caring for. With all the difficulties and horrors we see happening all round us, we might even wonder where God is in all this.

That’s when we have to remember this parable. Every one of us must begin every day with the resolve to live as a child of God. It’s not easy. Those who do, we were reminded in the Beatitudes, often suffer for it. But it’s worth it. We must be the ones who point toward God in everything we do. That’s how we stay prepared. It’s through our daily kindnesses, our willingness to share our oil, whatever that might look like. It’s through our example of what’s important in our lives. With Christmas coming soon, do we find ourselves totally immersed in the consumer side of the holiday, or are we taking some time to pray, to find some quiet time to thank God and ask for God’s strength? Are we afraid to talk about the true meaning of Advent and the coming of our Savior among our own families and friends, because they believe Christmas is really about buying and selling? And yes, stores will be open at midnight, we’d be able to get our oil, but would we be welcome to the feast? Maybe not.

It’s up to us to live in a way so that we are always prepared. Quite honestly, living a life in which we’re always prepared is easy. All we have to do, all we’re asked to do by God is: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength; and love your neighbor as yourself.

The Rev. Dr. Susanna Metz is vicar of Petrockstowe in the Torridge Team, Diocese of Exeter, North Devon, England, and is the publisher of “Tuesday Morning,” a quarterly journal focused on lectionary-based preaching and ministry.

In North Carolina, there is a parish called the Episcopal Church of the Holy Communion: the Churches of the Frescoes. The parish has two worship spaces: St. Mary’s in West Jefferson, and Holy Trinity in Glendale Springs. The North Carolina artist, Ben Long, painted several frescoes between the two churches depicting an expectant Mary, John the Baptist, Jesus crucified, and the Last Supper. Long-time parishioners give lectures to groups that come to learn about the frescoes at the two churches.

One of the interesting anecdotes that a guide will tell you is that at the time Ben Long painted the first fresco, which was of Mary, he had used his pregnant wife as the model of the body and then used a waitress they met in Hickory as the model for the face. Furthermore, in his fresco of the Last Supper at Holy Trinity, he used people he knew as the models, including the priest who was there at the time. The priest requested to be painted as one of the servants who was carrying plates out of the room, so he is forever seen in the right-hand corner of that fresco, unobtrusively carrying his precious pottery away.

The fact that Mr. Long used real people to paint well-known saints encourages us to pause and think about what it must have been like for the models to pose, knowing that they were being painted as a saint – a person who was considered holy and benevolent – when they may have not felt that way themselves.

The experience of the Churches of the Frescoes puts in mind an even more recent project that has been done about saints. There is a church in downtown Los Angeles called the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. The Cathedral has very tall walls in the sanctuary on which the design team wanted to hang particular works of art. They hired artist John Nava, who developed what they now call the “Communion of Saints” tapestries. The tapestries have 135 saints and blesséd from throughout the ages on them, as well as 12 untitled figures, including children of all ages, to represent the many anonymous holy people in our midst.

The curious thing about the process of developing these tapestries was that the artist did not have many depictions of earlier saints in order to know what they looked like. He used death masks and early artwork to assist his images, but then he gathered people at random off the streets who looked like the particular saints he was trying to paint – people he saw at coffee shops and restaurants, people at the beach, people walking the dog, people like you and me.

Most people were flattered to be models. Some were believers, others were not, but when they were interviewed about the process, they almost all said the same thing: being a saint, being dressed in the clothes and learning about their saint’s story, made them want to act like the saint they were modeling. They felt better about life and felt connected to the world in a deeper way than ever before. And the fact is, they are. They are connected to the saints they modeled and they are connected to us and to Christ, as is seen when you enter the Cathedral’s sanctuary. The saints line the walls and they are all gazing toward the cross above the altar, marching toward it, just as the real saints did before them, and as we continue to do each week, including today, when we come to the altar at Eucharist, and as the next generations will do in the future. It is a powerful vision.

Now, we may not know each saint’s story, but we do know Jesus’ story, just as they did, and that is a powerful connector. It is a connection that is never lost or weakened, even though they are not present on earth with us. The gospel accounts tell us about Jesus, so we know of him in the historic sense, but our faith is what connects us with the mystery of life in Jesus. We hear the gospel stories about Him and stories of the saints’ encounters of Him and know our own stories, all of which are part of this greater story of life. We remember Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection each week at the Eucharist, and in turn, are “re-membered,” brought together, united in the Body of Christ. United in our common faith and story. And this re-membering, this unity, transforms us, so that we may go out renewed and strengthened by the knowledge of our belonging to God and of those who came before us and will come after us, belonging to God, too.

As Christians, we carry on Jesus’ mission of transforming the world by spreading the kingdom of God in our daily lives. And in a way, isn’t that what we do with any loved one not among us? Many times, we carry on their vision and make it ours so it will continue to be carried into the future. By living out the Christian mission, we honor God, we honor each other, and we honor the lives of those who came before us, who also held that same mission. Like them, once we have come to Jesus Christ, we are His own and remain that way, and will join the great multitude that was talked about in our scripture from Revelation, worshiping God and singing: “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever!”— The Rev. Danáe Ashley is priest-in-charge of St. Edward the Confessor Episcopal Church in Wayzata, Minn., and was formerly in Diocese of Western North Carolina.